Basic Trope: An extremely sensitive character who is quick to cry.
- Straight: Alice has to run to the bathroom to cry whenever anyone makes a harsh remark to her.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice will easily cry whenever someone greets her warmly.
- Alice will cry whenever anything happens.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is often on the verge of tears but manages to hold it together.
- Alice cries loudly and obviously, but only at very serious moments where it's expected.
- Alice cries more often than anyone else in the story, but those moments are still few and far between.
- Justified:
- Alice has been under the receiving end of endless ridicule from her peers.
- Alice undergone a serious event that emotionally destroyed her forever.
- Alice has very low self-esteem and/or outright depression; she falsely believes no one cares about her, and takes all perceived negative comments as personal insults.
- Alice has a psychiatric disorder with emotional dysregulation as a symptom; for her, this symptom manifests as crying easily.
- Inverted: Alice has Nerves of Steel.
- Subverted: It seems Alice is about to cry after Jake played a joke on her, but it was because of the onions.
- Double Subverted: That was just her excuse.
- Parodied:
- Simple friendly eye contact aimed at Alice causes her to run away in terror as she lets out a glass shattering scream.
- Bob makes a snippy remark at Alice, and her Ocular Gushers flood the building.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice is unpredictable in terms of receiving insults. Sometimes she will be hurt by insults, but be stoic in other situations.
- Averted: Alice is never seen crying, because there's never an event that would reasonably prompt it shown.
- Enforced: The executives want the cute girl to cry a lot to make her even cuter and more appealing.
- Lampshaded: "Don't even say hello to Alice, she will drown in tears if you say it the wrong way."
- Invoked: Alice is deliberately faking vulnerability to manipulate others.
- Exploited: Marcus, the resident Manipulative Bastard, uses Alice's fragility to force her to have an emotional breakdown For the Evulz.
- Defied:
- Despite being offended, Alice does her best to bottle up her emotions.
- Alice's parents or friends teach her to become less sensitive.
- Alice takes medication to help her better regulate her emotions.
- Discussed: "I wish Alice would just stop crying all the time."
- Conversed: “What is the appeal in a character who’s crying all the damn time?”
- Deconstructed:
- Alice's overly sensitive nature becomes detrimental in her social life. Her family gives up on her, her friends abandon her, and others seek opportunities to mock and bully her for their amusement. Now all that she can wish is to leave this cruel and hateful planet.
- Alice gains godlike powers and creates a pretty, sparkly oppressive dictatorship where no one is allowed to say or do anything that hurts her feelings on punishment of death.
- Alice's over-sensitivity has made it difficult for her to function in a society where being thick-skinned is highly regarded, especially in handling criticism and insults.
- Played For Drama: Bob notices how sensitive Alice is and tries to teach her how to be more thick-skinned when dealing with certain things, but he is so harsh with her that this causes Alice to become even more sensitive.
Back to Prone to Tears, but don't forget your pack of kleenex. You'll need it.
